When philosophers and psychologists examine the knowledge contained in episodic memories of past experiences, they usually construe this knowledge in representational terms. Most commonly, episodic memory is thought to represent an eye-witness account of events in the rememberer’s life; discussion then centres on the question of how reliably memory represents the past. In counterpoint to this dominant research paradigm, it is sometimes observed that when the remembered past diverges from the actual past, these apparent ‘misrepresentations’ may positively reveal the personal meaning of the rememberer’s experience (Fraser, 1984). Episodic memory is thus acknowledged to represent either the past as it was experienced, or, alternatively, the meaning the experience has for the rememberer. In this brief paper I will show how episodic memory’s claims to knowledge extend beyond the facts or meaning of the experiences represented, to include also the cognitive, affective and conative knowhow elicited in the remembering of those experiences. In episodic remembering, the rememberer mentally re-enacts the thoughts, feelings, and intentions that constitute the firstperson perspective of their remembered past. Following the momentum of intentional connections through which this remembered perspective is re-enacted, the rememberer is guided to think, feel, and will, in ways they might otherwise not know how to do from their present perspective, in their present situation. I will briefly discuss examples of each of these three varieties of enactive know-how – cognitive, affective, and conative – showing how they are similarly enabled by the re-enactment of our remembered experiences. By suggesting how rememberers might employ the cognitive know-how contained in episodic remembering, I also hope to show why this is an area deserving of more attention from researchers interested in the functions of episodic memory in everyday life.

Several recently developed philosophical approaches to the self promise to enhance the exchange of ideas between the philosophy of the mind and the other cognitive sciences. This review examines two important concepts of self: the ‘minimal self’, a self devoid of temporal extension, and the ‘narrative self’, which involves personal identity and continuity across time. The notion of a minimal self is first clarified by drawing a distinction between the sense of self-agency and the sense of self-ownership for actions. This distinction is then explored within the neurological domain with specific reference to schizophrenia, in which the sense of self-agency may be disrupted. The convergence between the philosophical debate and empirical study is extended in a discussion of more primitive aspects of self and how these relate to neonatal experience and robotics. The second concept of self, the narrative self, is discussed in the light of Gazzaniga’s left-hemisphere ‘interpreter’ and episodic memory. Extensions of the idea of a narrative self that are consistent with neurological models are then considered. The review illustrates how the philosophical approach can inform cognitive science and suggests that a two-way collaboration may lead to a more fully developed account of the self.

Enactive approaches to cognitive science aim to explain human cognitive processes across the board without making any appeal to internal, content-carrying representational states. A challenge to such a research programme in cognitive science that immediately arises is how to explain cognition in so-called ‘representation-hungry’ domains. Examples of representation-hungry domains include imagination, memory, planning and language use in which the agent is engaged in thinking about something that may be absent, possible or abstract. The challenge is to explain how someone could think about things that are not concretely present in their environment other than by means of an internal mental representation. We call this the ‘Representation-Hungry Challenge’ (RHC). The challenge we take up in this article is to show how hunger for representations could possibly be satisfied by means other than the construction and manipulation of internal representational states. We meet this challenge by developing a theoretical framework that integrates key ideas drawn from enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology. One of our main aims is thus to show how ecological and enactive theories as non-representational and non-computational approaches to cognitive science might work together. From enactive cognitive science, we borrow the thesis of the strict continuity of lower and higher cognition. We develop this thesis to argue against any sharp conceptual distinction between higher and lower cognition based on representation-hunger. From ecological psychology, we draw upon our earlier work on the rich landscape of affordances. We propose thinking of so-called representation-hungry cognition in terms of temporally extended activities in which the agent skilfully coordinates to a richly structured landscape of affordances. In our framework, putative cases of representation-hungry cognition are explained by abilities to coordinate nested activities to an environment structured by interrelated socio-material practices. The RHC has often figured in arguments for the limitations of non-representational approaches to cognitive science. We showcase the theoretical resources available to an integrated ecological-enactive approach for addressing this type of sceptical challenge.

Various kinds of observations show that the ability of human beings to both consciously relive past events – episodic memory – and conceive future events, entails an active process of construction. This construction process also underpins many other important aspects of conscious human life, such as perceptions, language and conscious thinking. This article provides an explanation of what makes the constructive process possible and how it works. The process mainly relies on attentional activity, which has a discrete and periodic nature, and working memory, which allows for the combination of discrete attentional operations. An explanation is also provided of how past and future events are constructed. Relevance: The article (1) shows that various forms of consciousness (such as time travel, linguistic thought, dreams) are the result of an active process of construction, rather than faithful representations of a world independent from the observer; (2) puts forward an hypothesis about the most plausible mechanisms underpinning the process of construction; (3) shows how the combined working of these mechanisms generate some forms of consciousness

Singer W. (2009) The brain’s view of theworld depends on what it has to know. In: Berthoz A. & Christen Y. (eds.) Neurobiology of “umwelt”: How living beings perceive the world. Springer-Verlag, Berlin: 39–52.

It is argued that perception is a highly constructive process and that the way in which we perceive the world and ourselves depends on a priori knowledge. Sources of this knowledge are evolution, early developmental imprinting and life long learning processes. Much of this knowledge is implicit and therefore there is no conscious recollection of the fact that perception is determined and constrained by priors that are genetically transmitted and acquired through early experience. Moreover, these priors are adapted to the mesoscopic scale of the world in which life has evolved and therefore cognitive abilities are to be seen as the result of evolutionary and developmental adaptations to an extremely narrow segment of the world as it is known to us to date. This has far reaching consequences for epistemic considerations and perhaps also for the management of cultural conflicts. If the perception of social conditions is also dependent on priors and if these priors are acquired early during development, they will exhibit culture specific traits but will remain implicit because episodic memory develops only several years after birth (childhood amnesia). In this case subjects cannot realize that their perception of social conditions depends on idiosyncratic, culture specific priors. What is perceived will be taken as absolute truth, acquire the status of convictions and cannot be altered by arguments.

The enactive account of cognition is the most mysterious strand of current thinking in this area. At its heart lie notions of embodiment, self-organisation, the environment and the proposition that we enact the world. As interesting as this is, enaction comes into its own when we discuss episodic memory, mental time travelling and niche creation. This chapter introduces the key ideas underpinning enaction and then illustrates their relevance to human-computer interaction. For example, when we recall the experiences offered by technology we rely on our episodic memories which provide us with a personal perspective. We do not just remember facts, we re-experience the events. This is an enactive perspective on memory. Similarly when we imagine how an item of technology might behave, it is likely that we are using our episodic memories to construct this. Finally, we construct niches – cognitive and technological – where we feel in control and safe and do so in a manner which is very similar to bringing forth (or enacting) the world. Enaction offers quite a different and very promising perspective on cognition and interactive technology.